FF1WithAllThieves
11-15-2005, 12:29 AM
Junctioning Guide
<font size=-2>Posting on other sites or forums is strictly prohibited.</font>
Questions? (http://forums.ffshrine.org/private.php?do=newpm&u=1625)
Many people have posted in threads saying that the Junction System was confusing, and that they had trouble with it. Thus, I’ve decided to make a guide based entirely on junctioning magic.
Table of Contents
1. Basic concepts of junctioning
2. Junctioning throughout the game
3. Junctioning for max stats
1. Basic concepts of junctioning
The most important part of junctioning magic is being thorough. 50 of a magic spell for junctioning to a stat isn’t enough, nor is 80, 90, or even 99. If you’re going to junction a certain spell to a stat, you have to have 100 of it. Your stats will be much, much higher if you bother to get the maximum number of each spell you use.
Secondly, you get most of your spells from the magic refining abilities. So, it’s very helpful to learn all of the magic refining abilities with your GFs as soon as possible (along with the junction abilities, of course).
Thirdly, use your magic VERY SPARINGLY. For example, although Ultima may seem like a really cool spell to use, it’s too hard to get and too good for junctioning to use in battle. In the case of Ultima, I would recommend not using it in battle at all.
Finally, it’s vitally important to take into consideration what kinds of enemies you’re facing. Aside from Elemental Attack and Defense, Status Attack and Defense are extremely useful against a large number of enemies, particularly nasty status-effect-causing ones like tri-faces and malboros.
2. Junctioning throughout the game
To many new players, the first instinct is to go out and draw all the magic from the enemies surrounding Garden. To be quite frank, this magic sucks, and you have no business ever junctioning any of it to anything. Drawing this magic is a complete waste of your time, which could be better spent learning your GF abilities. Generally, this is true throughout the game, as most enemies you fight don’t really have particularly good magic.
Early in the game, you don’t have very many options unless you do some serious levelling up. If you don’t want to spend the time, then you’ll just have to wait a while until you start learning GF magic refining abilities. Quezacotl’s T Mag Rf, Shiva’s I Mag Rf, Ifrit’s F Mag Rf, and Siren’s L Mag Rf are incredibly useful abilities. In addition, the Card Mod ability is very useful, too, because many cards can quickly be converted into powerful magic. Also, if you want the Water spell, which is pretty effective for junctioning and is good for Elemental Atk. and Def., simply go to the beach and fight Fastitocalon Fs. They drop fish fins, which mod into waters. (I Mag. Rf.)
If you’re feeling ambitious and you have a lot of time on your hands, you can get the Tornado spell very early from Abyss Worm cards. 1 Abyss Worm will mod into 1 windmill, which in turn mods into 20 Tornadoes. Tornado junctions extremely well to strength. You can do this before you even go to the Dollet Field Exam, which makes it much easier to defeat X-ATM092. If you do this, though, you have to get Card Mod and T Mag Rf.
After the Dollet Field Exam, when you get the Magic Lamp and can therefore get Diablos, you can make very good use of Time Mag Rf and Stat Mag Rf. But more importantly, you start getting salaries. I suggest buying tents and modding them into Curagas with L Mag Rf, because they junction VERY well to HP at this point. If you went to the trouble of getting Tornados, I would recommend junctioning them to Strength because Curaga junctions almost as well to HP, and Tornado is the best Magic for Strength for a long time.
Also, now that you have a wide range of card players out there to deal with, you can get a few other good spells from cards. Mezmerizes give you Mezmerize blades, which give you Regens. Regen junctions even better than Curaga to the HP stat, so you can move Curaga to Vit. or Spr. (L Mag Rf, of course) Also, Gayla cards mod into Mystery Fluids, which mod into Meltdowns. Meltdown is the very best spell you can junction to Vit. (Stat Mag Rf.) You can also get Quakes by getting Armadodo cards and moding them into Dino Bones into Quakes. (Time Mag Rf.) Quake junctions well to Str. and Mag., and it’s the only Earth elemental magic available. Finally, Tonberrys and Tonberry Kings will mod into chef’s knives, which mod into 30 Deaths apiece. (L Mag Rf.) Death junctions very well to Mag., and it can also be junctioned as Status Atk. or Status Def. To get Blizzagas, mod Snow Lions, and to get Thundagas, mod Blitzes.
With all of that said, there isn’t much else you can get before you go to Deling City. Obviously, you don’t have to get all these right away; you can do it at your own pace, but this is the best magic available at the time. Before or after you visit Tomb of the Unknown King, you can trek down to the desert where D-District Prison is. Running around you allows you to fight Abyss Worms, which are actually better for getting Tornados than Thrustaevises (which are around Deling City).
At some point, you will begin encountering enemies that have Firaga, Blizzaga, and Thundaga. It is at this point that you need to draw elemental magic because you can actually use these. They’re great for Elemental Atk. and Def., and they junction pretty well to any stat you haven’t gotten better magic for.
The next good spell you find is Life, which can be drawn from Sacred. Life can be junctioned to Vit. and Spr., but it isn’t quite as good as Curaga.
When you become prisoners in the D-District Prison, be sure to draw the Haste spell from Biggs. Go ahead and cast it on everyone, and then don’t stop drawing until everyone has 100. This spell will be very useful later on. Also, Biggs has Regen, so if you don’t have 100 of those, you can stock up on them as well.
When you return to Balamb Garden, the MD level has potential to give you rather amazing spells. You can fight Tri-Faces in the area with the huge ladder that Squall causes to fall. If your level is high enough, you can draw Pain and Flare from them. Pain junctions very well to Mag., and it is extremely good for junctioning to Status Def. Flare is the most powerful magic you’ve found yet, and you can replace Tornado and junction it to Str. This frees up Tornado to junction to anything else you want, and it’s very good for just about any stat.
Once you’ve got the mobile Balamb garden, you can get a lot of new stuff. Firstly, you can go to the Shumi Village and draw Ultimas from there every now and then. If you fancy your luck, you can try and encounter a Ruby Dragon in the forest and draw Meteors from it. Meteor can replace Flare on Str. and free up yet another of your great magic spells to junction to whatever else you want to. On the Northern continent near Trabia, you can draw Meltdowns from Gaylas and junction it to Vit., giving your characters a huge boost in defense. If you get Meltdowns, you will never need to find anything else to junction to Vit.
In terms of side quests, if you go to the Centra Ruins, you can fight Odin and get Triple from him, which is the best magic to junction to Mag., and once you defeat him, you can face Tonberry King. Tonberry King has Full-Life, which is the best thing you can junction to HP.
Once you draw Pandemona from Fujin, you can finally obtain the Spd-J ability. Here’s where your Hastes come into play. Haste junctions extremely well to Spd., and that gives you a huge advantage in battle. Also, you can get Cerberus, who has Spd-J too, and you can steal one of the very few Spd-J scrolls from him when you fight him. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT, because without it, you can't obtain Spd-J for all of your characters.
In Esthar, you can actually buy HP-J, Str-J, Vit-J, Mag-J, and Spr-J scrolls, along with Amnesia Greens. With this, you can take GFs with very few Junction and Character abilities, such as Tonberry King, make them forget the Magic, GF, Draw, and Item commands (other GFs will have these), and have them learn all 5 of the abilities from the scrolls. This way, you can junction GFs based on other abilities, such as Elemental Atk and Def, Status Atk and Def, and Character Abilities.
Once you get the Ragnarok, you can head to the Deep Sea Research Center. There, you can finally really stock up on Ultima. The best way I know of to do this is to mug tri-faces in the area where they appear. With Tool Rf. and Forbidden Mag Rf., you can make 100 Curse Spikes into 100 Ultimas. One notable thing is that beating the Ultima Weapon can earn you 100 Ultima Stones, and if you’re very brave/ very stupid/ very desperate, you can draw Ultima from the Ultima Weapon (possibly a good idea with the person who’s been getting them from the Shumi Village, but don’t forget to draw Eden!) As to what you junction Ultima to, it’s really up to you. I have a way I like to do it, but Ultima is really just the “make one stat really really good” spell, so I won’t tell you you’re way is wrong.
That about covers it for finding spells as they become available.
3. Junctioning for max stats.
Here is a little list of what magic goes best with what stat. Note that this is assuming that you have 100 of every magic in the game, and that Ultima is pretty much the best magic for basically every category.
HP – Full Life works best, but it has other uses. Possibly consider Regen or Curaga, depending on what your HP without Junctioning is. Try to boost this stat with HP+80% and other such abilities so that you can use Full Life for something else.
Str. – Meteor. It really doesn't have a better use.
Vit. – Meltdown. No question about this one.
Mag. – Triple. Unless you’re fighting cactuars, or you want to use Triple for speed, in which case Death works pretty well.
Spr. – Curaga, Regen, or Life. Curaga is probably your best bet.
Speed – Haste or Triple, depending on whether you'd prefer a higher speed or Mag. stat.
Evade - Tornado. Unless you're willing to spend Ultima, which I will admit gives a very high Evade stat, it's the best thing to use.
Hit – Double for most situations, because hit isn’t a very important stat to junction magic to. The only time you really need to junction something to hit is when you’re fighting Cactuars to learn GF abilities. In that situation, since you don’t need a high magic stat, simply take Triple and junction it to hit. That should make it fairly easy to kill the Cactuars.
Luck – To be perfectly honest, you don’t really need to junction anything particularly good to Luck. If you want to junction something to it, just look through your extra magic and find something good. Unless it's really important to you that Odin/Gilgamesh appears pretty often.
Elemental Atk. – The spell of whatever element the enemies you’re facing are weak against, basically. Late in the game, it’s generally a good idea not to junction anything to this, because many enemies will absorb many, if not all, elements.
Elemental Def. – You can junction whatever spell is the element used by your enemy, or you can use my strategy. If you junction Ultima, Full-Life, Life, and Flare (in that order, depending on how many slots you have), you will absorb every element! This is useful against many enemies, because they will often times inadvertently heal you.
Status Atk. – Death is good for this, and so are Break and Zombie. You can get breaks by buying Softs and modding them with Status Mag Rf, and Zombie becomes especially useful when you have the Revive ability. Be careful, though, because if a character with these is confused, he/she will very easily kill your characters.
Status Def. – Pain, Pain, Pain. It gives you 100% protection from several status effects. Aside from that, junction whatever else your enemy might be using, or possibly junction Esuna to give a little protection from everything.
Well, that’s my guide on the Junction System. If you have any comments, corrections, concerns, or anything else that begins with the letters “co”, feel free to post them.
Edit: I realilzed while playing the game that I mixed up Meteor and Flare in the Elemental Def-J. Flare is actually the one that gives you protection from three elements, meaning it's a better idea to junction Meteor to Str and save Flare for Elementa Def.
Edit: I forgot about the Evade stat entirely. Added that one.
Edit: I changed my mind about Hit-J; I decided that junctioning Double for most battles is the best thing to do.
Edit: Made some revisions, including helpful suggestions from Jarosik.
<font size=-2>Posting on other sites or forums is strictly prohibited.</font>
Questions? (http://forums.ffshrine.org/private.php?do=newpm&u=1625)
Many people have posted in threads saying that the Junction System was confusing, and that they had trouble with it. Thus, I’ve decided to make a guide based entirely on junctioning magic.
Table of Contents
1. Basic concepts of junctioning
2. Junctioning throughout the game
3. Junctioning for max stats
1. Basic concepts of junctioning
The most important part of junctioning magic is being thorough. 50 of a magic spell for junctioning to a stat isn’t enough, nor is 80, 90, or even 99. If you’re going to junction a certain spell to a stat, you have to have 100 of it. Your stats will be much, much higher if you bother to get the maximum number of each spell you use.
Secondly, you get most of your spells from the magic refining abilities. So, it’s very helpful to learn all of the magic refining abilities with your GFs as soon as possible (along with the junction abilities, of course).
Thirdly, use your magic VERY SPARINGLY. For example, although Ultima may seem like a really cool spell to use, it’s too hard to get and too good for junctioning to use in battle. In the case of Ultima, I would recommend not using it in battle at all.
Finally, it’s vitally important to take into consideration what kinds of enemies you’re facing. Aside from Elemental Attack and Defense, Status Attack and Defense are extremely useful against a large number of enemies, particularly nasty status-effect-causing ones like tri-faces and malboros.
2. Junctioning throughout the game
To many new players, the first instinct is to go out and draw all the magic from the enemies surrounding Garden. To be quite frank, this magic sucks, and you have no business ever junctioning any of it to anything. Drawing this magic is a complete waste of your time, which could be better spent learning your GF abilities. Generally, this is true throughout the game, as most enemies you fight don’t really have particularly good magic.
Early in the game, you don’t have very many options unless you do some serious levelling up. If you don’t want to spend the time, then you’ll just have to wait a while until you start learning GF magic refining abilities. Quezacotl’s T Mag Rf, Shiva’s I Mag Rf, Ifrit’s F Mag Rf, and Siren’s L Mag Rf are incredibly useful abilities. In addition, the Card Mod ability is very useful, too, because many cards can quickly be converted into powerful magic. Also, if you want the Water spell, which is pretty effective for junctioning and is good for Elemental Atk. and Def., simply go to the beach and fight Fastitocalon Fs. They drop fish fins, which mod into waters. (I Mag. Rf.)
If you’re feeling ambitious and you have a lot of time on your hands, you can get the Tornado spell very early from Abyss Worm cards. 1 Abyss Worm will mod into 1 windmill, which in turn mods into 20 Tornadoes. Tornado junctions extremely well to strength. You can do this before you even go to the Dollet Field Exam, which makes it much easier to defeat X-ATM092. If you do this, though, you have to get Card Mod and T Mag Rf.
After the Dollet Field Exam, when you get the Magic Lamp and can therefore get Diablos, you can make very good use of Time Mag Rf and Stat Mag Rf. But more importantly, you start getting salaries. I suggest buying tents and modding them into Curagas with L Mag Rf, because they junction VERY well to HP at this point. If you went to the trouble of getting Tornados, I would recommend junctioning them to Strength because Curaga junctions almost as well to HP, and Tornado is the best Magic for Strength for a long time.
Also, now that you have a wide range of card players out there to deal with, you can get a few other good spells from cards. Mezmerizes give you Mezmerize blades, which give you Regens. Regen junctions even better than Curaga to the HP stat, so you can move Curaga to Vit. or Spr. (L Mag Rf, of course) Also, Gayla cards mod into Mystery Fluids, which mod into Meltdowns. Meltdown is the very best spell you can junction to Vit. (Stat Mag Rf.) You can also get Quakes by getting Armadodo cards and moding them into Dino Bones into Quakes. (Time Mag Rf.) Quake junctions well to Str. and Mag., and it’s the only Earth elemental magic available. Finally, Tonberrys and Tonberry Kings will mod into chef’s knives, which mod into 30 Deaths apiece. (L Mag Rf.) Death junctions very well to Mag., and it can also be junctioned as Status Atk. or Status Def. To get Blizzagas, mod Snow Lions, and to get Thundagas, mod Blitzes.
With all of that said, there isn’t much else you can get before you go to Deling City. Obviously, you don’t have to get all these right away; you can do it at your own pace, but this is the best magic available at the time. Before or after you visit Tomb of the Unknown King, you can trek down to the desert where D-District Prison is. Running around you allows you to fight Abyss Worms, which are actually better for getting Tornados than Thrustaevises (which are around Deling City).
At some point, you will begin encountering enemies that have Firaga, Blizzaga, and Thundaga. It is at this point that you need to draw elemental magic because you can actually use these. They’re great for Elemental Atk. and Def., and they junction pretty well to any stat you haven’t gotten better magic for.
The next good spell you find is Life, which can be drawn from Sacred. Life can be junctioned to Vit. and Spr., but it isn’t quite as good as Curaga.
When you become prisoners in the D-District Prison, be sure to draw the Haste spell from Biggs. Go ahead and cast it on everyone, and then don’t stop drawing until everyone has 100. This spell will be very useful later on. Also, Biggs has Regen, so if you don’t have 100 of those, you can stock up on them as well.
When you return to Balamb Garden, the MD level has potential to give you rather amazing spells. You can fight Tri-Faces in the area with the huge ladder that Squall causes to fall. If your level is high enough, you can draw Pain and Flare from them. Pain junctions very well to Mag., and it is extremely good for junctioning to Status Def. Flare is the most powerful magic you’ve found yet, and you can replace Tornado and junction it to Str. This frees up Tornado to junction to anything else you want, and it’s very good for just about any stat.
Once you’ve got the mobile Balamb garden, you can get a lot of new stuff. Firstly, you can go to the Shumi Village and draw Ultimas from there every now and then. If you fancy your luck, you can try and encounter a Ruby Dragon in the forest and draw Meteors from it. Meteor can replace Flare on Str. and free up yet another of your great magic spells to junction to whatever else you want to. On the Northern continent near Trabia, you can draw Meltdowns from Gaylas and junction it to Vit., giving your characters a huge boost in defense. If you get Meltdowns, you will never need to find anything else to junction to Vit.
In terms of side quests, if you go to the Centra Ruins, you can fight Odin and get Triple from him, which is the best magic to junction to Mag., and once you defeat him, you can face Tonberry King. Tonberry King has Full-Life, which is the best thing you can junction to HP.
Once you draw Pandemona from Fujin, you can finally obtain the Spd-J ability. Here’s where your Hastes come into play. Haste junctions extremely well to Spd., and that gives you a huge advantage in battle. Also, you can get Cerberus, who has Spd-J too, and you can steal one of the very few Spd-J scrolls from him when you fight him. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT, because without it, you can't obtain Spd-J for all of your characters.
In Esthar, you can actually buy HP-J, Str-J, Vit-J, Mag-J, and Spr-J scrolls, along with Amnesia Greens. With this, you can take GFs with very few Junction and Character abilities, such as Tonberry King, make them forget the Magic, GF, Draw, and Item commands (other GFs will have these), and have them learn all 5 of the abilities from the scrolls. This way, you can junction GFs based on other abilities, such as Elemental Atk and Def, Status Atk and Def, and Character Abilities.
Once you get the Ragnarok, you can head to the Deep Sea Research Center. There, you can finally really stock up on Ultima. The best way I know of to do this is to mug tri-faces in the area where they appear. With Tool Rf. and Forbidden Mag Rf., you can make 100 Curse Spikes into 100 Ultimas. One notable thing is that beating the Ultima Weapon can earn you 100 Ultima Stones, and if you’re very brave/ very stupid/ very desperate, you can draw Ultima from the Ultima Weapon (possibly a good idea with the person who’s been getting them from the Shumi Village, but don’t forget to draw Eden!) As to what you junction Ultima to, it’s really up to you. I have a way I like to do it, but Ultima is really just the “make one stat really really good” spell, so I won’t tell you you’re way is wrong.
That about covers it for finding spells as they become available.
3. Junctioning for max stats.
Here is a little list of what magic goes best with what stat. Note that this is assuming that you have 100 of every magic in the game, and that Ultima is pretty much the best magic for basically every category.
HP – Full Life works best, but it has other uses. Possibly consider Regen or Curaga, depending on what your HP without Junctioning is. Try to boost this stat with HP+80% and other such abilities so that you can use Full Life for something else.
Str. – Meteor. It really doesn't have a better use.
Vit. – Meltdown. No question about this one.
Mag. – Triple. Unless you’re fighting cactuars, or you want to use Triple for speed, in which case Death works pretty well.
Spr. – Curaga, Regen, or Life. Curaga is probably your best bet.
Speed – Haste or Triple, depending on whether you'd prefer a higher speed or Mag. stat.
Evade - Tornado. Unless you're willing to spend Ultima, which I will admit gives a very high Evade stat, it's the best thing to use.
Hit – Double for most situations, because hit isn’t a very important stat to junction magic to. The only time you really need to junction something to hit is when you’re fighting Cactuars to learn GF abilities. In that situation, since you don’t need a high magic stat, simply take Triple and junction it to hit. That should make it fairly easy to kill the Cactuars.
Luck – To be perfectly honest, you don’t really need to junction anything particularly good to Luck. If you want to junction something to it, just look through your extra magic and find something good. Unless it's really important to you that Odin/Gilgamesh appears pretty often.
Elemental Atk. – The spell of whatever element the enemies you’re facing are weak against, basically. Late in the game, it’s generally a good idea not to junction anything to this, because many enemies will absorb many, if not all, elements.
Elemental Def. – You can junction whatever spell is the element used by your enemy, or you can use my strategy. If you junction Ultima, Full-Life, Life, and Flare (in that order, depending on how many slots you have), you will absorb every element! This is useful against many enemies, because they will often times inadvertently heal you.
Status Atk. – Death is good for this, and so are Break and Zombie. You can get breaks by buying Softs and modding them with Status Mag Rf, and Zombie becomes especially useful when you have the Revive ability. Be careful, though, because if a character with these is confused, he/she will very easily kill your characters.
Status Def. – Pain, Pain, Pain. It gives you 100% protection from several status effects. Aside from that, junction whatever else your enemy might be using, or possibly junction Esuna to give a little protection from everything.
Well, that’s my guide on the Junction System. If you have any comments, corrections, concerns, or anything else that begins with the letters “co”, feel free to post them.
Edit: I realilzed while playing the game that I mixed up Meteor and Flare in the Elemental Def-J. Flare is actually the one that gives you protection from three elements, meaning it's a better idea to junction Meteor to Str and save Flare for Elementa Def.
Edit: I forgot about the Evade stat entirely. Added that one.
Edit: I changed my mind about Hit-J; I decided that junctioning Double for most battles is the best thing to do.
Edit: Made some revisions, including helpful suggestions from Jarosik.